Roku Channel Launches Free Hispanic Streaming Hub Espacio Latino

deadline.com:

Roku is launching Espacio Latino, a free streaming hub for Hispanic programming, on the Roku Channel.With more than 61 million active accounts as of March 31, Roku is a leading gateway for streaming, and one of its most popular offerings is the Roku Channel, a mix of free and paid on-demand and linear services with reach to some 80 million households.

The Roku Channel operates in the U.S., UK and Canada but the Espacio Latino initiative is launching in the U.S. only.Companies like TelevisaUnivision and Telemundo have noted in mobilizing streaming ventures recently that the Hispanic audience is underserved.

Espacio Latino will aggregate thousands of movie, series and telenovela titles as well as family entertainment and news.In an interview with Deadline, Roku execs said they decided to create the new hub after noticing that nearly 70% of Spanish-language viewing households watching The Roku Channel do not have pay TV but returned to watch The Roku Channel more than three days a week.

Ashley Hovey, head of The Roku Channel, AVOD, called the launch “an exciting step forward in our efforts to create a unified Spanish language experience for millions of streamers.”At launch, Espacio Latino will feature thousands of hours of free movies and TV shows in Spanish, some of which are original and exclusive to Espacio Latino, plus popular English titles dubbed and subtitled in Spanish.